A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure
Michael-Scott Earle
Chapter 1
“Hurry, my lord,” Lux said urgently from the entryway to my bathroom.
“I just got in. I need to wash,” I replied as I held my hand under the soap dispenser in the shower.
“I will assist if you ne--”
“No. I can do it.” I hissed at her as I ran my soapy hands over my body. She’d watched me take off my suit but had said nothing besides telling me to hurry some dozen times.
“Make sure all your fear is washed away. King Vaish will not respect you if he smells it.”
“I’m working on it,” I growled as I lathered my armpits and chest.
“Work faster, my lord,” she said. “The next hour will decide your fate, the fate of the Prime Valkyrie, and the fate of your crew.”
“What do you mean? Why is it so--”
“You should be done by now, my lord.” I saw her reach for the door of my shower.
“Can you grab a fresh suit from my closet?” I asked as I lathered my crotch and upper legs.
“Yes,” she said as she turned away from my shower. She returned five seconds later, but I was working on my feet now.
“I’m almost--”
“Did you wash your hair?” she asked.
“No, I don’t--”
“Your fear will be there as well. Do it.”
“Why is this such a big deal? I didn’t need Madalena to do any of this. I would have saved you all without her submitting to me.” I put more soap on my hair and went to work lathering.
“You aren’t one of the Nordar. You do not understand,” she said simply.
“Then educate me,” I said as I scrubbed the shampoo out of my hair. It’s quite possible I’d never taken a quicker or more thorough shower in my entire life, and that was saying a lot considering I am a Marine.
“I will speak of it while we move to the armory. Are you done?”
“Yes--” I almost didn’t finish the word before she was opening the door to my shower. She carried one of my flight suits and pushed it out to me like a towel.
“Hey. Just give me some space. I need to turn on the dryers. It will take a few extra seconds.” I pushed the beautiful ebony-haired woman out of my shower and hit the button to recycle the water. It blew most of the water off me in a few moments, and I tried to ignore the warrior woman appraising my naked body.
“Hurry,” she said as she pushed the suit to me. I took it and then put it on in the shower while she watched.
“I’ll need to brush my--”
“Your breath smells fine. We must hurry.” Her hand closed around my arm, and she pulled me out of the bathroom. A bit of rage flared in my stomach, and I thought about resisting her, but I knew she was only trying to help me.
“Tell me more about--” I started to say, but she interrupted me by pushing my massive chrome revolver into my chest.
“Wear this. The Prime Valkyrie has already approved.”
“Fine, I’ll--”
“Put it on while we walk, my lord.” Lux was already pulling me out of my room, and I fumbled with the weapon harness while we walked.
“Tell me about Madalena’s father. King Tanal? Is that his name?” I asked as I pushed the elevator button for the bottom floor of Persephone. It felt a bit weird to leave a bunch of strangers on her bridge, but I didn’t have much choice.
“You will address him as King Vaish. Or Prime Overlord Vaish, if you address him at all. Do not address him out of turn or he will kill you.” Lux had almost no emotion in her words, so I guessed she wasn’t joking.
“So, he’s going to be pissed that Madalena has submitted to me?” I was filling in the blanks a bit.
“Yes, my lord,” she answered as the doors to the elevator opened.
“Explain why.”
“We only submit to one, and we serve them in life and death. The Prime Valkyrie has submitted to no one. She is the strongest warrior of all the Vaish Overlord Clans, and her father has leveraged her prowess against the other clans. She is his spear, his hammer, and his shield. It is fortunate that she has given you the Vaish name.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Where is the armory?” she asked as we stepped from the elevator.
“This way,” I replied as we moved down the hallway. “Why does the name--”
“You are not Nordar. If you were, and from another Clan, she would serve you and that clan. Overlord Vaish would lose his most powerful warrior and favorite daughter. Since you aren’t Nordar, and she gave you the Vaish name, our king has two choices.”
“Which is?” I asked as we stepped into the armory.
“I will help you put on your armor. Where is it?” Lux demanded. “This is taking too long.”
“Over here,” I said as I fought against my frustration and pointed at the wall with my armored plates. “What are his two choices?”
“If he thinks you are weak, he will try to have you killed in the rites of passage. This is a loophole in our process. If you die during the rite, it will be as if the Prime Valkyrie did not submit to you. You will cease to exist in our people’s race.”
“Shit,” I sighed as I started to put my armor on.
“Yes,” Lux said with a nod. “He might feel you are too strong, and won’t submit to him, so he’ll have you killed during the rites.”
“Fuck,” I growled. “That’s the second option?”
“No. That is option one. He’ll kill you in the rites. I feel confident that will be his plan.” Lux was watching me put on my armor, and she began to attach the pieces of plate to my back.
“Okay, what is option two?”
“He must find a way for you to submit to him. Then he will control you, and his daughter through you.”
“Can I just submit to him right away?” I asked, but the monster in my stomach didn’t like the idea, and he filled my mind with a long threatening growl.
“Yes, but you mentioned you have friends who you wished to find. Is that true?” Lux asked as she finished attaching the last piece of armor to me.
“Yeah. They were taken by--”
“It doesn’t matter. King Tanal Vaish cares not about your friends or your mission. He will use you and your ship to fight the other Nordar Blood Clans. Perhaps once we are all united, he will allow you to look for your friends, but I doubt that.”
“Fuck me,” I growled as I put my armored glove to my face. “So, I either die or forget about my friends? This isn’t a--”
“Are these all of your weapons?” Lux asked as she pointed to the armory wall where our firearms hung.
“Yeah. I have a sniper rifle and a--”
“King Tanal Vaish respects face-to-face combat. He understands the importance of ranged warfare, but you should carry one of these.” The obsidian-haired warrior woman pointed at my pair of shotguns.
“Will it even matter if he respects me?” I growled as I grabbed my trusty shotgun from the rack. It wasn’t as versatile as the double magazine one Juliette had given me, but it was bulkier and could fit fifty shot drums of ammo.
“The Prime Valkyrie told you to take the largest weapon. I am following her commands, my lord.” Lux fixed her cold eyes on my face, and I tried to calm my anger.
“Alright, so how do I get through this alive and also save my friends?” I asked as I strapped on my ammo belt. My large pistols were holstered on the belt along with my long knife.
“You don’t, my lord.” She had guessed that I needed the drums for my shotgun, and she passed three full ones to me after I finished checking my belt for the rest of my ammo.
“There has to be a way,” I said as I loaded my shotgun.
“Perhaps the Prime Valkyrie wi
ll know. I am not concerned.” Lux gestured to the door, and we walked out.
“Why are you not concerned?” I asked, even though I guessed the answer.
“You saved us, but you are not one of us. You are weak. The Prime Valkyrie is five thousand times the warrior you are. I have submitted to her. If you die in the rites, we can continue with our mission. It is more important than the lives of your friends.”
Lux’s words made the beast roar, and I had to fight to keep him from taking over. I actually tripped a bit as I walked down the hallway toward the hold, and her hand shot out to grab onto me.
“You seem to be helping me now,” I growled as I yanked my arm away from her grip. She was really fucking strong.
“I have submitted to the Prime Valkyrie, my lord. If she told me to slit my own throat, I would do so without question. If she told me to kneel before you and pleasure you with my mouth for the next month, I would do so. If she told me to bear your children, I would--”
“I understand,” I growled as the dark-haired woman looked at me. For half a second, her emotions came through her eyes, and it was obvious she didn’t care for me.
“You understand nothing,” she said. “Goran gave his soul to protect her. He will not reach Valhalla now. Every single one of us would have done the same. We thank you for saving our lives, but she should not have submitted to you.”
“I agree. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t want it. She didn’t need to.”
“She did. It is our way,” Lux said.
“Fuck, you assholes are so weird. I don’t give a shit about your honor, or any of this shit. I was trying to help you all out so I could continue looking for my friends. Now I’m involved in--”
“Do not speak so openly in front of King Vaish,” she cut me off. “He will destroy you before the rite of passage.”
“I can’t figure out if you are helping me or--”
“The Prime Valkyrie told me to help you, my lord,” she said, “but now you can ask her your questions.”
We had reached Persephone’s hold, and Lux pointed to the far end where the loading door was. Madalena stood there surrounded by eight other armored figures. Each of them was wearing skull covered power armor with gold etching on the bone structure. They also carried plasma rifles and wore longswords strapped to their armored hips.
“I have brought Adam, Prime Valkyrie,” Lux said after she escorted me over to the group. The figures in the power armor were all wearing helmets, and they stared at me with glowing blue eyes.
“Return to the armory and complete the task I assigned you,” Madalena said to Lux. The black-haired woman saluted the Prime Valkyrie, and then she nodded at me before leaving.
I watched Lux walk away for half a moment and fought against my anger. I didn’t want to like the woman, but I wasn’t anywhere close to understanding the culture I’d been thrown into. At least they had all been honest with me.
“That armor and your choice of weapons please me,” Madalena said, and I turned away from Lux so I could face the other woman.
“She gave me an overview,” I said. “Apparently, I’m going to die, or I need to submit to your father and forget about my friends.”
“Let us walk, my lord,” Madalena didn’t answer me, but she gestured to the bulky armored figures surrounding us. My anger caused the monster in my soul to roar, but our escorts turned to move, and we exited Persephone’s hold while I tried to keep him under control.
I couldn’t help but fear that I wouldn’t be returning.
“What is the plan?” I asked Madalena as we walked down the ramp and onto the floor of the massive battle fortress. I didn’t know if I could even trust the woman, but I didn’t have any other anchor here, and Lux had made my future apparent.
“We will speak of it later, my lord,” the warrior said as she turned her steel colored eyes to me. I didn’t know Madalena well enough to pick up the subtext of her words, but I understood that she might have not wanted to speak around our escorts. It made sense since she had called them her father’s enclave.
I busied myself by looking around the interior of the fortress. It was a massive hangar, and I quickly lost count of the ships moving through the air above us. They drifted toward parking spots or connected to docking stations on the inside of the hold with a robotic precision that my mind couldn’t really wrap itself around. The ships were all painted either red with black trim, or black with red trim, and the hundreds of vessels parked beside our walkway looked to be in perfect shape.
A legion of repair crews sprinted between the ships, led repair robots, or manned scaffolding structures around half-painted vessels. Everywhere I looked there was either a drifting star ship, running maintenance crew, a vessel lifting off, or a group of heavily armored marines preparing for battle. I thought the Jupiter Marines was a well-oiled combat machine, but we still had our lazy techs, disgruntled repair crews, and over-enthusiastic warriors. Madalena’s people moved around with an intensity I found strangely comforting.
These people were ready for anything.
We walked for at least five minutes and then reached a center hub tower that I guessed was the control nexus of the docking harbor. It was a spiraling shell shaped structure which almost touched the ceiling of the hold. It must have been a good two hundred meters high, and dozens of smaller craft touched down on landing pads that jutted from its sides or docked with tubes coming out of the building.
I thought we would have accessed an elevator at the base level and journeyed deeper into the ship, or taken a lift up to the top floor, but we instead climbed onto the back of a hovercraft parked beneath the spire. One of the armored escorts took the driving seat, and the rest of us strapped ourselves into the passenger chairs.
As soon as we were secured, the driver said something in the unknown language, and the hovercraft sped away from the control nexus. It was hard to tell exactly how fast the vehicle was going, but it was much faster than what I could run.
It took us another ten minutes to reach the end of the fortress’ interior harbor.
I thought about making a comment about the size, but Madalena sat across from me, and her intense stare convinced me that I shouldn’t speak.
The hovercraft soon came to a stop near a massive set of double doors. There was a group of armored soldiers waiting there, and this group also wore the same highly decorated armor and longswords of our escorts. The new group took position around Madalena and me, and our group now numbered twenty-six.
We walked for another five minutes before reaching an access door for a maglev train. The tube was much larger than the one at Queen’s Hat, and a punch of grief hit me in my stomach when we stepped into the tube. I missed Zea, Eve, Kasta, and Paula terribly.
“How much far--” I started to say, but Madalena’s eyes narrowed at me dangerously. I didn’t like being at her mercy, but I had enough sense to know I was way out of my element here, so I kept my mouth shut.
I found it odd that no one spoke to Madalena, or that she didn’t address our escorts. It almost seemed as if there was a tension in the air, causing me to wonder if Lux’s explanation of King Vaish had been less dire than reality. I didn’t want to read too much into the situation, but it felt like I was being marched to a funeral.
Then again, these people never seemed to smile or laugh. Their lives appeared to be a march to a funeral.
We exited the tube, at which point our entourage split to take two hovercraft. We looked to be near the main living area of the battle fortress, and the road we took threaded us through massive metal buildings, surprisingly lush parks, and even a river. It seemed like a utopian city inside the fortress, but the sight put me even more on edge. The amount of power Madalena’s father must have possessed was starting to make my head spin. I didn’t have any numbers to back up my estimate, but I imagined this single fortress had enough manpower, ships, and weapons to take on the entire Jupiter Navy. The thought wasn’t very comforting, and I tried to twist my mind around t
he logistical ways that such an advanced society could have come into existence.
The hovercraft parked in front of a building that looked like a castle, and I couldn’t help but let out a gasp of disbelief. Each facet of the structure glowed from the descending lights of the fortress interior. It looked like a cross between an ice palace, a glass citadel, and a rainbow figment of my imagination. Dozens of green ash trees stood sentinel watch over the walkways between the parking lot and the magnificent castle, and I noticed hundreds of men and women in dress uniform strolling through the palace grounds.
Our entourage exited the vehicles and then escorted Madalena and me through the front garden. As soon as we entered the grand hallways of the castle, I realized the building was made out of a highly polished gray metal. I doubted it was rhodium, but it could have been platinum or titanium or one of the many armored metal blends; with a hint of the more valuable stuff to give it polish. I almost asked Madalena, but she still had her cold eyes fixed on me, and I decided to hold my tongue for a bit longer.
The inside of the castle was surprising. It looked to be made of a dark gray brick. Long navy-blue rugs covered the floors, and wood archways met with automatic metal doors to form a strange hodgepodge of rustic styling. There were old suits of armor on display at every corner, Viking style shields hanging on the brick walls every meter, and groups of beautiful women balancing trays of food on their shoulders as they walked down the corridors.
One of our escorts spoke words in the unknown language, and we were gestured in through a doorway. This was obviously a waiting room with a burning fire crackling in a hearth on the far side of the chamber, long green couches, and tables. The tables were laid with cheese, fruit, salted meats, and decanters of wine chilled in buckets of ice. Wood, brick, and tapestries of glorious fight scenes decorated the walls, but my eyes focused on a massive looking monster standing still at the opposite end of the room. It looked as if it could have been a bear, but it reached some four meters high, had six arms, and a maw that looked like it belonged on a shark. Sharp spikes jutted out of the white fur at the creature’s elbows, knees, and shins, and I wondered how it met its fate.
Prime Valkyrie Page 1
